There is a lot of talk about the effect of technology on education, but not a lot of it focuses on the effect of technology on meetings about education. However, last night, I observed three different meetings about education that provided an interesting contrast of how technology is affecting these meetings.

The Woodbridge Board of Education met last night for their monthly meeting. Yet this meeting was different. It was the first time that they used a program called Emeeting from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE).

“CABE-Meeting is a user-friendly online service specifically designed to assist the board and superintendent, in preparing and running board of education meetings. “

At the beginning of the meeting, Nick Caruso from CABE, together with members of the technology staff at Beecher Road School assisted school board members get connected to Emeeting and learn their way around.

Superintendent Stella spoke about the importance of the board adopting new technology and modeling the appropriate use of technology for students, teachers and staff. He also discussed a committee being formed, headed up by Rick Wood, the technology educator at the school. The committee will include members of the Board of Education, and parents from the community and will address the three-year technology plan.

Dr. Stella also discussed the Connecticut Educators Computer Association (CECA). They are holding their 2008 CECA Conference today, “Surviving and Thriving in an e-Literate World”.

It was noted that Nancy White and James Crawford from Beecher Road School will be attending as 2008 CECA Award Winners for their work in Digital Storytelling.

This digital storytelling project involves a sixth grade class, a general education teacher and a special education teacher. This project integrates various elements of Language Arts, Social Studies and digital media to express the students’ thoughts and ideas on various subject matters. Students gain the necessary skills to produce their digital stories through a four-tiered approach in which the special education teacher is incorporating the teaching of successively sophisticated technical skills in a series of four mini projects. In this tiered approach the students learn how to take digital still photographs, create music soundtracks, record narration, use digital video cameras, and import these media into the iLife suite of software on their groups’ computers. Students then publish and/or present their work. Students are asked to evaluate their movies as they would for their writing for ideas, organization, voice, word (picture) choice, fluency and conventions. Digital Storytelling exemplifies a project that showcases how technology can be used to enhance learning for all students.

As part of the Superintendent’s report, there was also a discussion about the Connecticut Mastery Test and how the school is working on improving the already high results that BRS students receive.

I am not a big fan of standardized testing, the CMTs or No Child Left behind, and the presentation did not hold my interest. So, I checked on Twitter to see what some of my friends around cyberspace were doing.

This is how I observed a second meeting about technology in education. Christine, a woman I met through Twitter and Podcamp goes by the username of PurpleCar on Twitter. She was at some meeting where Katie Kessner was speaking. (For a brief bio of Ms. Kessner, check here.)

PurpleCar’s first Tweet about the talk said, “waiting for a 'the dangers of webkinz' talk to begin. If this woman has no facts and spreads panic, I'm politely gonna go BOOYAH on her.”

I noted that Fiona is working on her reading, writing, typing and math skills by using Webkinz. PurpleCar reported that the speaker talked about “the students denied access to college because of their facebook pages”. Another Twitter user, nazgul, noted “@dulceamargo got a scholarship to study motion picture arts at Interlochen because of an ad on Facebook. Life-changing.”

The discussion, both where PurpleCar was, and on Twitter, continued on and on, with many of us on Twitter coming to the conclusion that Ms. Kessner is an ill-informed fear monger.

The contrast between the Board of Education members, learning their way around a new system and talking about how technology is being used at BRS to improve education provided a sharp contrast to the meeting PurpleCar was at. It also provided an interesting insight into the standardized tests.

Standardized tests, like information technology can, and too often are, used to instill fear which thwarts education. However, they can also be a valuable tool to improve the educational process. It was clear from the presentation that the staff at Beecher Road School understood the benefits and dangers of standardized testing and were working hard to make sure they are used to the students best benefit.

The folks of Woodbridge should be proud of all the efforts that the teachers, staff and administration at Beecher Road School are doing to make sure that all tools, information technology, standardized tests, and so many other tools are being used in the best interests of students. I know I was.